April 4th, today is Qingming Festival.
Psychologist Irvin Yalom likened death to “the distant rumbling at a picnic.” But he also believed that facing our mortality can change the way we live: it helps us set aside mundane concerns and motivates us to live without regrets.
We know that talking about death takes courage. But learning to mourn is an important skill because “death belongs to life, just as life belongs to life.”
How do you remember a loved one, friend or animal that has passed away? Here are some of the editors’ own stories.
Relationships do not automatically end with death.
It is entering a very long new phase.
My grandfather passed away in 2018. I was studying abroad at the time and couldn’t make it back. During that time, almost anything could hit me. Walking down the street, I saw a person whose back looked like my grandfather, standing there and crying so hard that passersby looked at him sideways.
I grew up with my grandparents, and there was an unspoken understanding between us.
In the last few years of his life, he proposed the idea of donating his body. His family was a little resistant at first. To be honest, we didn’t know how his body would be handled, and we always felt a little cautious. But I supported his decision. So, from notarization to handling the formalities to choosing a hospital, I accompanied him throughout the process. After submitting the application form to the hospital, I heard the staff say: “All those who apply for body donation are buried in a cemetery in the suburbs.”
The following year, on Qingming Festival, I returned to China and went to the public cemetery. The screen at the entrance scrolled the names of the donors, and the names of those who died in the same year were all engraved on a huge tombstone. Everything gave me an extremely unreal feeling. I couldn’t express my grief in front of such a huge tombstone, and my emotions were instantly blocked. What’s more ironic is that three chrysanthemums at the entrance were sold for 35 yuan. Almost all the people who came to pay their respects were dissatisfied with this behavior of raising the price, but their behavior was very consistent, that is: no matter how much they cursed, they still had to buy. I just think it’s ridiculous because we don’t give any new possibilities to “mourning”.
After a while, I sat at his usual desk and found many photo albums of me from birth to primary school on the bookshelf behind the door. He specially wrote the year of shooting on the cover of each photo. I saw a photo of my grandfather holding me when I was a child. I liked it very much because he smiled happier than me in the photo. So I tattooed this photo on my body. Strangely, I seemed to have gained some energy from it, as if I finally found a place to put everything about him. Four years have passed, and there seem to be more and more things in it.
In recent years, I have increasingly felt that relationships do not automatically end with the death of one party, but instead enter a very long new phase, which is nostalgia. When all the strong emotions brought about by the loss die, something new will take its place and continue to grow. As for what those things are, I have not yet concluded.
My tears fall as soon as I say
It’s actually good, because I learned to miss
The first half of a person’s life is about meeting people, and the second half is about separation. Most of the people we meet, such as parents, relatives, friends, pets, and beloved items, must be said goodbye to one by one. If this separation comes too early, it is inevitable that people will panic and not know what to do.
Crying is a skill, something I realized only after I grew up. When I was a child, all I could do when facing separation and loss was to protect myself from breaking down. I avoided it. Without a sense of reality, I didn’t have so many tears. I used to watch my friends crying because of the plot while watching a movie together, and I secretly thought that my eyes hadn’t cried for a long time, and whether they would dry up. But not facing it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just wears away over the years, affecting my personality, the way I do things, and my intimate relationships. The process of growing up is also a process of dealing with these emotions. When I grew up a little and had more strength to face it, my tears flowed uncontrollably all day long.
I picked up a little black cat, and I was very conflicted about whether to keep it or not, because it reminded me of the dogs I had when I was a child who were lost or left me due to illness due to poor care. The tearing pain made me hesitant, so in the eyes of others, I couldn’t bear the arrival of a cat and cried my heart out.
I never had conflicts with my friends when I was young. When I grew up, I could argue and quarrel with “friends”, colleagues, and strangers. However, when facing a good friend I cared about, I would burst into tears without even saying a word, because I was afraid that she would really leave me.
One time, due to work requirements, I had to watch a documentary about the emergency room. The plot of the film made me cry through two packs of tissues at my workstation regardless of the time, the place, or my image.
Yes, I cry easily now, and tears fall without cost. But I am very happy because I can finally face my true feelings. The pain of the loss of my relatives, friends, and beloved dog when I was a child is no longer buried and avoided by me, and I can finally truly miss them.
Grandma with Alzheimer's passed away
We gave her the name back.
The day after the exam, my mother called and said that my grandmother had passed away.
My grandmother has been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for nearly twelve years. At first, she forgot what vegetables to buy and which way to go home; later, she forgot the names of her family members and sat on the sofa mumbling in the middle of the night; later, she forgot how to speak and regarded the corner of the quilt she was covered with as the most interesting toy like a little baby.
I took the earliest high-speed train back to my hometown, and my parents were calmer than I expected.
Perhaps it was because we had always been able to see death during these twelve years. Or perhaps it was because grandma passed away so peacefully that we had no fear in the face of death. Through death, we saw all the ongoing connections she left in this world.
My parents heated up some food for me and we sat together to discuss the funeral.
I don’t know who started it, but we started talking about my grandmother’s memories. I was naughty when I was little, and I climbed up to someone else’s window awning and refused to leave. My grandmother coaxed and tricked me into coming down, and then she slapped me twice on my calves. “But in fact, that was the only time your grandmother spanked you, and you only remember this incident,” my father said.
As for my mother, I remember that when she was pregnant with me, my grandmother would accompany her for a walk around the lake every day. “We walked a long way, and I heard a lot of gossip about your grandmother and grandfather.” “What gossip?” I couldn’t help but ask her a lot of old love stories.
She is my grandmother, my mother’s mother-in-law, and my father’s mother. She had a difficult youth, a happy family, and an old age that was not comfortable.
She also has a particularly nice name, her name is Sheng Langzhi.
I didn't find out until I died.
We have never been close to his heart
I grew up in a highly avoidant and alienated family, where love was not expressed to each other, and often only “tradition” could bind us together, such as buying flowers following mourning rituals during Qingming Festival.
The irony is that my deceased grandmother was frugal all her life, and we never bought her flowers when she was alive. But after her death, she was kidnapped by the consumerist morality————because we who are still alive really don’t know what else to do to express our remembrance.
Grandpa’s funeral was more like a typical farewell for a “veteran cadre in the unit.” The leader attended and read the obituary. But they hadn’t seen each other for a long time, and they were not friends. The leader read the manuscript and summarized his life in a slightly official tone.
For me, who works in the literary field, both of these are extremely disconnected. It is not just the disconnection between life and death, but also the disconnection between the obituary and real life, and the disconnection between all our emotions and the cold routine. When I walked out of the funeral home, I was overwhelmed by a huge sense of emptiness: At the end of a person’s life, is he trapped in a false reality and has a sloppy ending?
Later, I kept thinking, what is the respectful, genuine and humane way of commemoration, and how to repair those divisions?
I tried to write a story, but found that the memory was broken, the story was incomplete, we never seemed to discuss the deeper feelings, and of course there was no chance to discuss them. These feelings were like a huge whale, passing through the dark shadows in the deep sea, but there was no splash on the surface.
I have to admit that I know nothing about “intimate relationships.” I know nothing about the people around me, my hometown, and neighborhood.
When I came to my senses, I found that I read books and watched movies about farewell and death every year: 《When Breath Becomes Air》, 《Goodbye》, 《Six Feet Under》… The death education that I once lacked seemed to provide some time and space, allowing me to recall my family’s daily life and allow myself to slowly reconstruct my memories of them.
Every year, I remember a little more of those fragments of the story and carve them into the tissues of my body until (maybe) one day they become a stream.
Farewell is a long journey, don’t be too anxious. Live well first, and take care of the rest later.
✍️
What's your unique way?
Commemorating a lost relative, friend or animal?